Aṣṭāvakra presents the non-dual vision in its most direct form: the entire jagat (universe) is nothing but the ātman. For the mahātman — the great-souled one who knows this — the duality of subject and object, knower and known, dissolves into a single seamless reality. Pain and pleasure can appear only within the illusion that there is an “other” capable of affecting the self. When the whole field of experience is recognized as the self, all disturbance loses its cause.